So long for now

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed how long it's been since my last post - a good month and a half. Unfortunately balancing business, baby, and blogging is proving tricky and sadly something has got to give. So I've quit my job and put the baby up for adoption. Only joking of course.

No, I'm afraid the time has come to take a break from the blog for a while, at least until I can find the time to write something I'm proud of. I'd much rather take a blogging holiday than churn out slightly dull articles for the sake of it, nor do I want writing to become a chore or something that I feel I have to do every week. It's a hobby after all, not an occupation.

So I just wanted to say thanks for following my edible life so far. For those who have been with me from the beginning, you've seen what it takes to follow a dream and change career and I hope it's been inspiring to anyone thinking of doing the same thing. To anyone who has found me more recently, then it's a hi and goodbye and a promise that I will return, hopefully sooner rather than later, and with more culinary tales to tell.

In the words of the Governor of California, I'll be back.

Meat Snobbery

It is clear that the time has come for many people to reassess the way they spend their money and our household is no different in that respect. Where we differ from the majority is that our fall in income has been brought about by choice and not by some guy in America who couldn't keep up his subprime mortgage payments triggering the meltdown of the global financial system. Nevertheless, a 75% drop in salary coupled with statutory maternity pay of £118 a week necessitates some serious belt tightening. We are no longer considered DINKYs, the marketeers dream segment of high-earning, big-spending twentysomethings.

Much of the credit "crisis" we now jointly face has to be put down to a culture of continually wanting more, not less. By launching new 'generations' of Ipod, or digital cameras with a bit more pixel capacity, or handbags in this season's colour, companies manage and manipulate the desires of neophiles for whom owning the latest thing is a defining aspect of their personalities. With our food, we're urged by supermarkets to 'Taste The Difference' or buy the 'Finest' bag of potatoes, as if the previously normal but slightly misshapen spuds would scream out "pikey" to anyone who might casually glance over from a neighbouring checkout and see the word 'basics' written on the packaging. Keeping up with the Joneses can be expensive and all consuming, but when we become insecure about things as insignificant as the size and shape of our carrots, we may be taking things a little too far.

The master of food snobbery has to be Marks and Spencer. For years, its food porn advertising campaign has basically been one huge sneer, a show of oneupmanship, a look down its nose at the fridge contents of the hoi polloi. "This isn't just food, this is Marks and Spencer food", they say, a well copywritten line that seems to paraphrase their true thoughts of "I wouldn't eat what you eat if I was alone on a desert island with only a rotting fish and a coconut for sustanance."



"Connoisseur Christmas pudding packed with plump sultanas and steeped in Courvoisier cognac", she gushes. But it's still mass produced in a factory somewhere and what's aspirational about that?

The rise of the organic movement and interest in sustainable farming has created a new class of food snob where provenance of meat has become the new "terroir" or "vintage" to be bragged about over the dinner table. "If it's not rare breed, it's not going anywhere near my plate", they whinney, juices slowly dripping from their invisible chins. "I'll see your Gloucester Old Spot and raise you my Lincolnshire Curly Coat." "You're not seriously going to serve me that 21 day aged sirloin are you? It's 55 days or nothing for me." The question is, does a breed's rareity make it any better to eat, or is it like the most expensive of fine wine where your money is being spent on a feeling of exclusivity rather than a pound for sip improvement in quality?

Everyday I have to walk home past The Blackfoot Butchers, the new outpost of the Salt Yard and Dehesa crew. I peer through the windows at their sumptuous display of rare breed meat like a petrolhead passing a Ferrari dealership. The Cote de Boeuf, the rack of salt marsh lamb, the aged ribeye - it's all on show, stoking that strange, irrational desire that I rail against in other areas of consumer society. Fortunately the prices are enough to snap me out of my reverie - beef fillet at £50 a kilo, ribeye at £36. That's a full 33% more expensive than the Ginger Pig which I would class as some of the best meat on sale in London. It may not be as expensive as Japanese Wagyu, but then I doubt it has been treated to sake and a daily massage - maybe a bottle of alcopops and backrub without the happy endings. This is British Beef after all.

With buying expensive meat comes the pressure of cooking it perfectly. If you're going to spend £15 on a single steak then overcooking it must be one of the most disappointing feelings around. Who cares how rare the breed if it turns out as leathery as Judith Chalmers after a few too many minutes in the oven? Far better to buy something a little cheaper, a little more, how shall I put it, common, and cook it well. I can guarantee that the best way to 'Taste The Difference' in a potato is to cook it properly and season it well, and the 'Finest' Turkey you'll find this Christmas may just be the cheaper one that is cooked with a whole lot of love.

Review: Lantana

I've written quite a few restaurant reviews on this blog, some favorable, some not. I'm sure that whenever a new restaurant opens, the owners must wait nervously on tenterhooks for the first reviews by both recognised critics and public alike. They can make or break a business in those first crucial weeks after opening, and in these difficult financial times it's positive feedback that can boost a new restaurant and bring customers through the floor. At Lantana, we've been keeping a keen eye out for our first reviews and we're chuffed with the sheer amount of positive feedback we've received so far. We've witnessed the marketing power of blogging, not only from Shelagh's own blog, but from coverage on some extremely well respected food blogs such as The London Review of Breakfasts, and that of breakfast aficionado Russell Davies. Mowielicious describes Lantana as "The Best Australian Cafe in London", complete with pictures of my lovingly iced Hummingbird Cakes. Nice one Mowie!

The web now plays host to loads of customer feedback sites. Tipped, and Qype are two of them that feature some customer reviews about Lantana and again for the most part the customer experiences are favorable. Reading them gives us a great idea of what people want and allows us to iron out any teething problems that any business experiences during its first few months.

Then there are the reviews from established publications. We've been featured in Time Out as one of the top 5 cafes in London for cheap eats,

"The super salads (smoky aubergine or a crunchy sugar snap and red cabbage combo, for example) are Ottolenghi-esque, the cakes and sunny breakfast offerings already drawing in a band of regulars."

and in the Evening Standard the mighty Fay Maschler wrote of Lantana,

"Breakfast has a list of dishes to inspire your day and lunch offers fine, healthy, inventive salads and irresistible home baking."

Well, as much of my day is spent baking, I'm pretty happy with that feedback!

The Darkness

It is early morning. Between the house and the train station the only sign of life is a lone fox prowling the front gardens of the terraced houses. It stops in its tracks, looks back over its shoulder, then continues down the road nosing through bin bags in search of scraps. Upstairs, curtains are drawn and for a few more hours at least, the residents will slumber on until alarms break the silence of their bedrooms and announce a new working day. Some will wake to the vibration and ringtone of their mobile phone. Others will be roused by the high energy voice of a radio dj. Many will hit the snooze button of their alarm clock, roll over, and catch another five minutes of sleep. Oh precious, precious sleep! Who can blame them? The first autumn frost has covered the cars parked outside and the duvet offers a far cosier place to shelter.

On the 5.29am train to Charing Cross, the first train of the day into central London, bleary-eyed passengers sit in silence peering into the darkness outside. At each stop, a handful more workers get on. They slump into empty seats and sleepily rest their cheeks against the chilly windows. They close their eyes wishing they were still in bed, dreaming in many languages from Portuguese to Polish. There is no jostling, no fighting for a seat or desperate shouts of "can you move down the train please?!" In three hours time the carriages will be crammed with commuters on their way to offices across the capital. Men in suits, freshly showered and with hair coiffed. Women vainly attempting to apply mascara as the train lurches from side to side. But here on the 5.29, no one has really made much effort over their appearance. There are construction workers in heavy boots with paint-splattered trousers and stubbled chins. There are cleaners, transport workers, hotel chambermaids, and kitchen hands all of whom will change out of their hastily chosen clothes and into the uniforms that await them at their workplaces. It feel strange to be amongst them, to see delivery vans hurtle down the empty London thoroughfares that will soon become congested with all manner of vehicle, to see the bare shelves of Pret and Starbucks being stacked with croissants and muffins. I am seeing London in a different light, although in reality at such an early hour, there is no real light to speak of.

It is the end of British Summertime, another summertime only in name. The clocks have changed and as I reach the cafe, the sun is beginning to rise. The faint dawn glow will be the only natural light I will see for the next week; that and the five minutes of twilight I might glimpse on my way home. With a kitchen in the basement, exposure to natural daylight is going to be minimal over the winter, something that is a scarier prospect than a trick or treat visit from the Ghetto Boyz of Brockley. By the time the end of March comes around I will probably have the skin tone of Marilyn Manson and the eyesight of a mole. Now if I can just get the fashion bibles to sell "Blind Goth" as the look for Spring/Summer '09, it will all be worthwhile.

The One Hundredth Post: Going Pro

Well fellow bloggers, what is the longest amount of time you've spent composing a post? For me this article, the hundredth post of This Edible Life, has taken about three weeks to write. I guess such a milestone certainly deserves a bit more care and attention but the fact is I haven't been scratching my head and wondering what to write, nor have I been writing, editing and re-editing to craft the perfect post. I've just been really, really busy.

Given that the very first post of this blog set out my ambition to become a professional chef, it seems fitting that my hundredth post should be about turning pro just over a year later. I now get paid to cook, and if I needed any further confirmation I only have to look at my daughter's birth certificate where it is there in black and white; Occupation of Father: Chef. On another official piece of paper, my marriage certificate, my occupation is listed as Advertising Executive and in a few hundred years time my descendants may come across both documents in the archives and wonder how and why this guy actually ended up as a cook. They'll probably learn about the great "credit crunch" of 2008 and surmise that he must have lost his job and been forced into service during hard times. Hopefully though, they'll find a record of this blog and learn what really happened.

Deciding what to do after training has been tricky. I know that if I was in my early twenties, I would have gone into a michelin-starred fine dining restaurant and worked my way up through the ranks, preferably indulging my interest in modernist "molecular" cookery along the way. Realistically though, at 35 and with a new baby, the punishing hours required to make it to the top in fine dining just aren't an option. I have to say goodbye to that dream.

So if fine dining wasn't an option then what else could I do. Well I came to the conclusion that at my age I needed to be more than a commis chef. I needed to work with people who wouldn't pigeonhole me as green college graduate but would see the benefit of my maturity and be prepared to give me more responsibility from day one. Fortunately I was introduced to a fantastic bunch of people who were in the process of opening an Antipodean cafe in central London, an idea I had once toyed with myself after returning from Sydney a few years ago. I loved their concept, I loved the idea of being part of another start-up, and I loved the fact that I could be involved in everything from menu design to pricing,and even ordering all the utensils needed for a fully functioning kitchen. Most importantly though, I wanted to be part of a small kitchen team working on everything from pastry and baking to grills and salads. With a view to running my own place in a few years time, I wanted to be in a position where I could learn the role of a head chef, deal with suppliers and ordering, and essentially learn everything there is to know about running an efficient kitchen. They offered me the role of Sous Chef at Lantana and I've been working there, six days a week for the past month. I am exhausted, but the learning experience has been fantastic.

It's hard to describe Australian cafe culture to people to haven't had the good fortune to experience it down under. The food is unpretentious but beautifully presented, the service is informal and friendly. Breakfast and brunch are celebrated and given the true status they deserve. In fact I don't think I'll bother trying to describe it any further, I'll let the menu speak for itself.

Breakfast 8-12 (All day Saturday)

Toasted muesli w banana, yoghurt and honey 4.5

Bircher muesli w apple and berries 4.5

Poached fruit w greek yoghurt + pistachios 4

Fresh fruit salad w mint and sweet ginger dressing 4.5

Toasted banana bread w date and pecan butter 4

Sourdough toast w vegemite or jam 2.5

Lantana baked beans w crumbled feta, sautéed spinach and sausages on sourdough toast 8.5

Field mushrooms sauteed w parsley and garlic served with
grated parmesan on sour dough toast 7.6

Pancakes w greek yoghurt and baked fruit 7

Poached eggs on toast 5

Scrambled eggs w smoked salmon on brioche w
fresh tomato salad 8

Corn fritters w crispy bacon, rocket, oven roasted tomatoes and
lime aioli 8

Baked eggs w buttered baby spinach and mushrooms served w tomato and red pepper chutney toasted sourdough 8

Sides
Bacon 2.4
Lantana baked beans 2
Slow roast tomatoes 2
HG Walter’s sausages 3
Sautéed spinach 2
Mushrooms 2

Lunch from 12pm

Open sandwich w bacon, rocket, sliced tomato, & fried egg w aioli 6.5

Corn fritters w layers of crisp bacon, rocket, oven roasted tomatoes, drizzled w roast garlic & lime aioli 8.5

Tart of the day served w choice of two salads from the counter 8

Salad plate of your choice of three from the counter 7.8

Steak sandwich w rocket, fresh tomato, caramelised onion relish and horseradish crème friache 8.5

Moroccan lamb skewers w flat bread and mint yoghurt served w bulgur, walnut, celery and pomegranate salad 8.7

Lemon & coriander infused chicken skewers served w served with salad from the salad bar and tomato and red pepper chutney 8.7

Sharing plate w bruschetta, olives, dips and prosciutto (for 2) 10

To Drink

Non-Alcoholic

Fresh orange juice
Virgin mary
Belu Still (750ml)
Belu Sparkling (750ml)
San Peligrino Limonato, Orangina
Bundaberg ginger beer

Alcoholic
Bloody Mary
Di Valdo bbiadene Proseco

Wine
St Roch grenache blanc
Bird in Hand sauvignon blanc
Camplazens rose
St Roch merlot
Bird in Hand shiraz

Beer
Coopers pale ale
Coopers sparkling ale
Menabrea

Coffee (extra shot 30p, Soy milk 50p)
Latte
Flatwhite
Capuccino
Long black
Mocha
Espresso
Machiatto
Hot Chocolate
Pot of Tea: English breakfast/Earl grey/Rooibos/Chai/Peppermint/Green


You can read more about our progress at Lantana on Shelagh's blog and if you're in the Oxford Street/Tottenham Court Road area than please come by and pay us a visit. We're at 13 Charlotte Place which is a little pedestrian street between Goodge St and Rathbone Place.

Naked Lunch

It seems I strangely have something in common with loony US senator Sarah Palin - I have the utmost respect for fig trees. Whilst John McCain's running mate is more impressed by the fig tree's ability to provide cover for mankind's naughty bits, my love of the fig tree relates to its fruit rather than its leaves. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve should really have spent less time worrying about their modesty, and more time picnicking on fancy fig dishes before another game of naked frisbee.

If you ever need a dish that's low on hassle but high on glamour, try this one. It's a simple fig and fennel salad as served at The French Laundry and even a child could make it. That's a child with no Michelin stars. It's just sliced figs, roasted peppers, a fennel salad, and a balsamic and olive oil dressing. Its simplicity belies its flavour and texture. The crisp fennel counters the moist, giving fig which explodes, seeds and all, in the mouth. It looks pretty fancy too. Let's face it, if this was served up in the Garden of Eden, all eyes would be on the plate rather than Adam's dangly bits so there'd be no need for fig leaves anyway.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Caramelised Pears and Greek Yoghurt

In a word, fluffy.

Fluffy as in the pillows you had your head on a few hours ago rather than fluffy, the contents of your bellybutton.

Whisked egg whites are incorporated into the ricotta pancake batter making the finished mix more like a soufflé. The result? Expanding air bubbles and hotcakes that puff up for a lovely light breakfast or brunch dish. Goodbye greasy fry-up. Hello hotcakes!

Review: Hawksmoor

The baking has got me a bit worried. I need to do something a bit manly or my life will be completely out of balance. My yin's up here, my yang's down there. Basically there's a whole yin yang yoyo thing going on and it's making me dizzy. Maybe I could grab a large axe and go chop some wood in a forest somewhere. Perhaps I could try wrestling a crocodile. If I had a shed I'd go sit in it for a while and maybe smoke a pipe. Unfortunately I possess neither an axe nor a shed to put it in, and crocodiles are few and far between around these parts. I'll have to make do with a bull terrier.

This all seems too much like hard work when I could simply take the shortcut to manliness and eat a large quantity of red meat. I say large but the word I'm really looking for is obscene (def: so offensive to chastity or modesty). I want an unchaste slice of animal. I need an immodest portion of protein. I don't care who I offend in the process.

So what would be an obscene amount of meat to consume in one sitting? Well I suppose that depends on where you are in the world and how large your stomach is. At Hawksmoor the options for ribeye are 400g or 600g but just as when the midwife handed me our 3.66kg baby a couple of weeks ago, metric in these cases means nothing to me. Babies come in pounds and ounces and in my experience steaks do too. Luckily my expensive Leiths education has equipped me with a mental imperial conversion calculator. 400g =14oz and 600g = 21oz or 1lb 5oz. That's scarily big. That's over five quarter-pounders big. That really is quite obscene. Just reading the menu gave me the meat sweats.

If I'd made one batch of muffins then a 400g, ahem, I mean 14oz steak would have redressed the balance. However over the course of a week I made several batches of muffins, brownies, friands and financiers. It was clear that only the 21 ouncer was going to do the job of restoring my manliness.

It was quite simply the most sublime piece of meat I have ever tasted. A slab of 28 day hung Longhorn ribeye cooked perfectly medium rare on a charcoal grill. Every single mouthful, and let me tell you there were many, was a mouthful of pure neanderthal joy. With every chew I could feel the testosterone surging through my veins. With every swallow, hairs were sprouting on my chest. I was either turning into Teen Wolf or the steak was doing the trick. I felt as manly as Sean Connery, though not quite as butch as Martina Navratilova. Still, the chances of me being cast in a Gillette commercial were much improved as the memories of muffins began to fade into a haze of meat and bearnaise sauce. I left the restaurant, my yin and yang back in perfect harmony and my voice two octaves lower. Hawksmoor will forever be the shed to which I retreat when times get a little too girly.

The Omnivore Hundred

I saw this on Lizzie's blog so thought I'd do it myself.

The idea behind the Omnivore's Hundred is to copy and paste this list, highlight in bold which ones you've eaten and mark which ones you wouldn't even consider. The one's in italics I wouldn't even consider

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (and I also have a 50p hot dog every time I go to Ikea!)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (mmm, is this meant to be rice 'n' peas because obviously I've had rice and beans before...)
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (and i had a chocolate coated scorpion last week too)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk (apart from in cheese form)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more. (brandy yes, whisky no.)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (I'm sure I have without knowing it!)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So that's 60 completed and none I wouldn't try. I can't say I'd be clamouring for roadkill but you never know. I'm surprised human flesh didn't make it onto the list for all the Hannibal Lectors out there.

The baking frenzy continues. Fig and apricot muffins are followed by mini pesto dampers and then blueberry friands. Why I'm cooking all this stuff will become clear in a few weeks time, but suffice to say I'm excited at the prospect of cooking every day after a few weeks away from the stove and back in the world of advertising.

Of course with the baking comes the eating. To be honest I don't feel so bad about scoffing the fig and apricot muffins as they're made with All Bran and that's healthy, right? The friands are probably the most addictive thing I've made in a long time, so moreish that I've already cooked a second batch and eaten three in one sitting while watching the wonderfully bad Eating With The Enemy this afternoon. Two guilty pleasures at the same time.

I'm happy to report that all my baking turned out just fine, but I'm even happier to report that the other bun I've had in the oven for the past nine months turned out to be even sweeter. Our baby daughter was born on the 24th August and is an 8lb bundle of pure perfection. Unfortunately for her it'll be a while before she can get stuck into some friands, but on the plus side for me it will also be a while before my cooking has to face the toughest puree critic out there.

Triple choc brownies

Something strange seems to be happening to me. I think I may be turning into a woman. Not only that, I think I may be turning into an all-American housewife. I just baked some triple choc brownies and I'm about to start on a batch of blueberry muffins. This can't be right, can it? Surely I should be butchering a cow or making a pig's head terrine or something. But baking? Whatever next? Will next week see me driving the kids four metres down the road to baseball practice in an SUV or chairing the next meeting of the local PTA? It's unlikely given that four metres down the road there's a home for crazy people and as far as I know they don't have a baseball pitch. Plus I don't have any kids. Yet.

I think there's some weird hormonal stuff floating around the atmosphere and I'm pretty sure I know where it's coming from. They say that a woman begins to 'nest' before she gives birth and I think it might be catching. I even did a spot of cleaning yesterday and I actually quite enjoyed it. Then I watched something on the E Entertainment Channel for over 10 minutes without shouting at the TV. This has never, ever happened before.

Quite frankly, I'm scared that things may get worse. If anyone catches me reading Grazia then please just put me in a cab to Spearmint Rhino with a crisp twenty in my hand and allow me to get back in touch with my masculine side, pronto. If not who knows where it will end. Probably with me making a quiche.

Chocolate and Coriander Tart with Rum and Raisin Ice Cream

I'm not going to write much about the main course, except to say that I let standards slip and went for a dish from the two star Champignon Sauvage - Saddle of Rabbit with Rabbit Leg Bolognaise, Carrot Puree and Braised Baby Gem. It was nice but I think you'll probably be more interested in this beauty, also from the same restaurant. I can understand many people baulking at the thought of making a palette d'ail doux or a rabbit leg bolognaise, but this tart is actually within the reach of most competent home cooks. You'll find the surprising mix of flavours becomes a talking point around the table, and the chocolate and coriander really do work well together. The ground coriander adds a slightly savory edge to the bitter chocolate which for a chocolate abstainer like me makes it a dish worth trying.

I don't normally include recipes on this blog, but this is such a winner I think it deserves to be made by every cook in the country. Here it is, taken from the book Essence by David Everitt-Matthias.

Serves 10 -12

for the pastry

270g plain flour
150g cold unsalted butter
50g ground almonds
grated zest of 1 lemon
seeds from 1 vanilla pod
100g icing sugar
1 egg yolk

for the filling

375ml double cream
375ml milk
675g bitter chocolate, finely chopped
3 eggs lightly beaten
10g coriander seeds ground and sifted to make a powder

To make pastry, place all ingredients in a food processor except egg and egg yolk and pulse until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and egg yolk and pulse until mixture starts to form a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface and bring together into a puck. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 40 mins. Roll out and line a 22cm tart tin. Refrigerate for 1 hour and then bake blind at 180 degrees C.

Put cream and milk into a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, then remove from the heat. Place chocolate in a bowl and slowly pour on hot cream, stirring all the time. Mix in eggs, and strain through a sieve, stir in half the coriander powder and pour into the pastry case. Dust tart with remaining coriander and then put in oven. Cook for 5 minutes then turn oven off and leave tart in for 30-40 minutes until just set. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

As the book suggests, rum and raisin ice cream is the perfect accompaniment to the tart.

3 Star Starter - Fish and Chips

It's been a while since I cooked for the in-laws, in fact the last time was a few months before I started at Leiths. They've been so supportive of my decision to change career that I really wanted to cook something a little bit special, something that I will probably never get do again due to future commitments to the job and to the newborn. I decided to cook three dishes from restaurants that currently hold two or three Michelin stars. For the starter I chose to do fish and chips, or rather a certain chef's take on the dish which at his restaurant is otherwise known as Red Mullet with a Palette D'Ail Doux and Garlic Chips. Quite frankly I think it's one of the prettiest things you can put on a piece of crockery. The wonderful colours of a vibrant green parsley coulis, the crisp red skin of the mullet, and the pale gold of the garlic chips just leap off a plain white plate.

What is this Palette D'Ail Doux of which you speak? Well it's basically a mixture of hard boiled egg yolks, blanched garlic puree, and cream. Technically it's a bit laborious to prepare due to the various stages of blanching garlic in milk several times to give it a milder flavour, the making of the egg yolk paste, and then the freezing, crumbing and refreezing of the final palette. When cooked though, it acts as a lovely rich, crispy plinth for the two fillets of fish and garlic chips. Any guesses as to the chef who originally created the dish and the restaurant it has been served in?

Things That Taste Like Chicken: Guinea Fowl

There are so many things that taste like chicken that it's well worth me doing a mini-series on the topic. In fact it seems that the only thing that doesn't taste like chicken is an intensively reared barn chicken which tastes of nothing but misery.

I never, ever order chicken in a fancy restaurant, principally because I'm a snob. Given the choice between chicken and rabbit I'll plump for the bunny every time. Quail? Yes please, waiter. Frogs legs? Mais bien sûr, Monsieur. It must be for show, or maybe an attempt at diet diversification. It can't really be for flavour because it's all just chicken to me. Not only do I go for these more "exotic" meats, but I pay over the odds for them too. God, I'm a sucker aren't I?

I first ate guinea fowl in France as a ten year old. On the dinner menu was a Suprême de Pintade which confused me because nowhere in my Tricolore textbook was there any mention of Pintades. "Mais qu'est-ce que c'est une pintade, Monsieur." I asked the waiter. "Guinea fowl", he replied. "Mais, qu'est-ce que c'est un guinea fowl", I asked again. He walked off, spluttering some nonsense about poulet.

Six years ago this very day I was eating another Suprême de Pintade in France. In case you're wondering I don't have this amazing memory where I can recall every meal I've eaten for the past ten years. I'm not the Rain Man of fine dining or anything. No, I remember it because it was the main course at my wedding and so it has a special place in my heart. Today It seems only appropriate that I should cook Suprême de Pintade aux Champignons for the love of my life and weirdly as we sit down to our romantic TV dinner in front of Celebrity Masterchef we see some guy from Brookside has done Guinea Fowl with Mushroom Sauce too. Unfortunately he's gone and put sun-dried tomatoes in there and John and Greg are not impressed. What a doofus.

Unsurprisingly our guinea fowl tastes of chicken, but thankfully we can also taste the Provencal sunshine, warm breezes, lavender, and the memories of a very happy day.

Pancake Day

We just don't eat enough pancakes in this country. For some reason, everyone goes mad for them on one day in February and then forgets about them for the rest of the year. I feel a bit sorry for "once a year" foods like turkeys, pumpkins, and hot cross buns. A few days in the spotlight, loads of attention, then nothing. Like a Big Brother evictee, that's it until they're rolled out again the following year.

A traditional pancake batter of eggs, milk and flour is fine, but for really great pancakes you need buttermilk. When the acid in the buttermilk reacts with baking soda, it produces enough bubbles to make a lovely fluffy pancake with a very slight tang. With bananas, honey and a dollop of greek yoghurt, I can't think of a better way to start a sunny summer morning.

Religion

Probably the closest I'll ever get to following one.

Raving about ravioli

Ravioli? I blinking loves the stuff. I can't stop making it. If I go a day without rolling and filling I get the shakes. I then have to make cold turkey ravioli and the pain goes away. I even like Heinz ravioli that comes in tins of gloopy, orange tomato sauce. I love the brown, mushy filling that resembles no real meat that I have ever tasted, but then I've never tasted squirrel or badger so my meat knowledge is hardly exhaustive. I love the rubbery pasta and the perfectly uniform sides that look like they've been carefully cut by a granny with pinking shears. The double carb nonsense that is Heinz Ravioli on Toast is a true fill-a-hole classic.

When it comes to ravioli, I'm like Raef from The Apprentice. I get on with prince or pauper. I'll happily chow down on some lobster ravioli in a greasy spoon on the Old Kent Road, or nibble on some Heinz with the It Girls in Pimlico. I say that, but the last time I went to Ozzies Cafe on the Old Kent Road they were all out of lobster ravioli and my dining companion, the Marquess of Wiltchester, had to make do with a bacon butty.

At home, my ravioli has definitely done a bit of social climbing. I started with a rather humble spinach, ricotta and pine nut stuffing but graduated to a much posher wild boar number. Then, with all the elegance required to make the society pages of Ravioli! Magazine, my pasta was filled with a chicken and mushroom mousseline and served with a lovely morel sauce. It seemed to make the grade as I've been promised photos will be published in the August issue alongside Baroness Tabitha Von Bissenberg Schoenke Walderheim and her husband, Dave.



Wild Boar: Upper Middle Class



Chicken Mousseline: Upper Class



Lobster: Ravioli Royalty

Having seemingly reached the pinnacle with a Lobster Ravioli and Lobster Bisque, I'm now at a loss of what to do next. I could head to Berkley Square and wrap a Bentley in pasta but I think that by the time the centre is cooked, the pasta would be overdone. Perhaps it's time to move on to tortellini instead.

End of Act One

My edible life seems to be taking a slightly surreal turn. On the carpet before me, two elements of my immediate future have collided and the realisation of the challenges ahead are beginning to hit home. My fellow initiates, some more confident than others, have started to unwrap what they have before them. We groan as the first struggles with sticky treacle. We wince at the sight and smell of pesto. We envy the guy with nothing at all. Then it's my turn. Nervously, cluelessly, I fumble with the tabs and open up the nappy. It's flecked with brown and yellow and my mind wanders off to the 'name the ingredient' tray of our theory exam. "Dijon mustard", says the NCT teacher, and despite my desire to inform her that it's wholegrain not dijon, I keep schtum. I may have been able to cut the mustard in cooking theory, but when it comes to baby poo, I really do know jack.

These are moments you never forget. Seminal, life-changing moments that herald a new beginning. The sight of five grown men, armed with cotton wool, delicately wiping condiments off a plastic baby's bottom in front of their partners. The pride that comes with success. The confidence to take on the future, no matter how scared we really are.

The end of NCT classes has coincided with the end of the Leiths Diploma and I now feel comfortable that I will know what to do in the event of contractions starting and a hollandaise splitting. Hopefully they won't happen at the same time as in a state of panic I'll probably throw ice cold water at Emilie and rush the hollandaise to hospital. Unfortunately we never covered placenta cooking in class but I'm thinking pan-fried with a sauce robert could turn into a Leiths classic and a good choice for next year's advanced practical. This year, my practical actually went ok, far from perfect but no disasters either.

Re-reading the first post of this blog from the 7th September last year, I realise just how much my life has changed. Making the decision to walk away from a successful, well-paid career was not an easy thing to do and I entered culinary school not really knowing if I could cook, just sure of the fact that it was something I loved to do. I was scared that cooking every day might somehow take the sheen off a favorite hobby, but thankfully, after this first chapter, I can say that it has done the opposite. I am fired up and ready for the next stage in my new career and excited about what the future may bring. In true, blubbing, Gwyneth Paltrow style, I do need to thank a lot of people for their amazing support over the past year. To the tasters, teachers, investors, listeners, classmates, and to everyone who has taken the time to read and comment on this blog. You know who you are. It came as a huge surprise to be voted Student of the Year 2008 by the teaching staff at Leiths but I know I would never have made it without your constant encouragement along the way. I hope you'll stay with me for part two of the story!

Flower Power

Ok, so I really should be revising. I should be memorising cuts of beef and imperial conversions and step by step methods for making genoise and puff pastry but my miniscule attention span is being affected by stuff happening in the garden. Mother Nature is putting on a show and that show needs to be eaten.

Last year, my vegetable patch was limited to three grow bags containing two varieties of tomatoes. This year, I added courgettes to my crop with the specific intention of stuffing the flowers. Courgette flowers are pretty hard to get hold of and they're bloody expensive too. You'd be looking at upwards of £1.50 per flower if you can find them. Given my current state of impoverishment, I should probably be flogging them at some farmer's market to eager cashed-up foodies but I can't bear to let them go. Their petals are just begging to be opened up, to have their stamens removed, and to be stuffed with a lovely soft goats cheese, fried in batter, and then drizzled with honey.



Fingers crossed, new buds will start appearing and we can indulge in another plate of ripeni ai fiori di zucca in a few weeks time.

The end is nigh

This is it. 6 months of a professional cooking diploma comes to an end in the next seven days. Work experience is completed and my portfolio, costing exercises and other coursework have been marked and returned. My hygiene certificate says I'm hygienic, and my health and safety certificate says I'm healthy and safe. At least I didn't fail on any of those.

On Friday I sit the theory exam and then on Monday, the dreaded six hour practical exam will put the past two terms of culinary education to the test. Tomorrow we find out what we will have to cook, but word has it that we'll be making puff pastry by hand, a task so gruesome that it sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it...